The disconnect between reality and 'reality' meets 'Coal'

Wednesday

Mar 30, 2011 at 12:01 AMMar 30, 2011 at 8:28 AM

"Coal" (10 p.m., Spike, TV-14) basically follows in the path of "Deadliest Catch," "Ice Road Truckers" and "Ax Men." On a purely visual level, those three established shows take place in the great outdoors set against the stirring scenery of Alaska and the Northwest forests. For the most part, "Coal" unfolds in the blackness of a mine.

Kevin McDonough

Do you have to be lobotomized to enjoy reality TV? Or is reality TV out to lobotomize its viewers?

"Coal" (10 p.m., Spike, TV-14) basically follows in the path of "Deadliest Catch," "Ice Road Truckers" and "Ax Men," programs also produced by its creators, Thom Beers' Productions. On a purely visual (or televisual) level, those three established shows take place in the great outdoors set against the stirring scenery of Alaska and the Northwest forests. For the most part, "Coal" unfolds in the blackness of a mine.

The "stars" of the series are the mine owners Mike Crowder and Tom Roberts, two guys who seem to spend most of their time in a trailer fretting about whether their daytime or evening shifts are going to gouge enough stuff from the mountainside. They've put their savings into the mine, but it's the miners who put their lives on the line. But in the logic of reality TV, we're supposed to root for the bosses.

Many of the miners come off as desperate men, born of a long line of desperate men. They proudly declare that mining is in their blood and that they know nothing else. One machine operator, who may or may not get fired by the first episode, tells us that he's returning to the grim worksite after suffering several heart attacks. His wife doesn't want him there and has inscribed a love letter on his lunchbox, in case that's the last thing he ever sees.

A lot of the miners' patter will be bleeped to keep the FCC off Spike's back. And almost all of their commentary is presented with subtitles because their strong West Virginia accents make them nearly incomprehensible.

So, just to recap, Spike is presenting a show set almost entirely in darkness, with subtitled dialogue. But this is not some bleak Ingmar Bergman movie but rather a weird effort to graft the American myth of the rugged individual onto what used to be one of the most highly organized and unionized professions around.

Coal mines have seen capitalist exploitation at its most callous and cruel, union corruption at its most violent and extreme, and environmental blight at its most hellish. But this is reality television, so in place of reality or history, we're spoon-fed tough-guy platitudes straight out of a beer commercial. Not sure viewers will be buying it.